Chief Information Officer
IC Technical Specifications
XML Data Encoding Specification for Contextual Entity Markup
Overview
This XML Data Encoding Specification for Contextual Entity Markup (CEM.XML) defines detailed implementation guidance for XML-encoding of Contextual Entity Markup elements (e.g., country, drug, compound). CEM.XML is used to curate textual content adding information such as a pseudonym for the string “Mary Jane” to be marijuana.
This specification is intended to supplement other specifications, such as PUBS.XML, by enhancing the in-line metadata tagging with contextual meaning that is not part of normal document or metadata markup. The use of such enhancements facilitates search, discovery, and many other enterprise tasks by more clearly tagging intent and disambiguating terms.
CEM.XML has a set of Entity tags that may grow over time as the requirements are presented. The starting set of Entities was extracted from PUBS.XML 2016-SEP, and versions of PUBS.XML starting with 2018-APR, use CEM.XML to replace the inline markup that it had since inception. The Schema Guide lists all the currently defined entities, their attributes, and definitions.
This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Data Standards Coordination Activity (DSCA) and Common Metadata Standards Tiger Team (CMSTT).
Technical Specification Downloads
Latest Approved Public Release:
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Contextual Entity Markup (V2018-APR - Standalone Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Contextual Entity Markup (V2018-APR - Convenience Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Contextual Entity Markup (V2018-APR - Light Package)
Mission Requirements
This DES is designed to fulfill a number of requirements in support of the transformational efforts of the IC. These requirements include:
- Capturing descriptive metadata markup
- Supplementing other specifications with descriptive metadata markup.
Both enterprise needs and requirements for this specification can be found in the following policies and implementation guidance:
- 500 Series:
- Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 500, Director Of National Intelligence Chief Information Officer
- Intelligence Community Standard (ICS) 500-21, Tagging of Intelligence and Intelligence-Related Information
Chief Information Officer
IC Technical Specifications
XML Data Encoding Specification for Intelligence Community Docbook
Overview
This XML Data Encoding Specification for Intelligence Community Docbook (IC-Docbook.XML) defines detailed implementation guidance for xml-encoding of elements within the Intelligence Community (IC) Docbook.
The purpose of IC-Docbook.XML is to create a tailored version of the Docbook template suitable for Intelligence Community (IC) use. This specification creates a customization of Docbook that uses ISM. In doing so, the specification enables systems to explore Docbook for various documentation needs outside of PUBS.XML required uses. For example, the documents within the IC specifications are maintained. By using IC-Docbook for documentation purposes the maintenance of the content and the formatting are separated providing less distraction in producing documentation. The content is maintained in IC-Docbook, and then rendered into various output formats (e.g., PDF) in a consistent manner always. IC-Docbook is a customization of the Docbook Stylesheets to support ISM and a basic rendering.
This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Data Standards Coordination Activity (DSCA) and Common Metadata Standards Tiger Team (CMSTT).
Technical Specification Downloads
Latest Approved Public Release:
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Intelligence Community Docbook (V2018-APR - Standalone Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Intelligence Community Docbook (V2018-APR - Convenience Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Intelligence Community Docbook (V2018-APR - Light Package)
Mission Requirements
This DES is designed to fulfill a number of requirements in support of the transformational efforts of the IC. These requirements include:
- Improving publication and dissemination efficiency by reducing the cost and time for performing manual and complex rendering, manipulation, and content transformation of information resource metadata in context of an intelligence publication.
- Facilitating discovery and exchange of content consisting of mostly text supplemented by interspersed non-textual content (i.e., multi-media) information between collectors, all-source analysts, and consumers.
- Capturing an intelligence publication's overall security marking metadata in order to support attribute and clearance-based information management practices, such as secure collaboration, content management, content and portion-level filtering of discovery results, and content transfers across security domains.
- Capturing source reference citations to provide intelligence collectors the ability to systematically analyze how and how often the data they gather or produce is being used in order to facilitate better management of collection and production resources.
- Capturing source reference citations to enhance the analytic integrity of formally disseminated intelligence information and improving the traceability of collected information to analytic judgments and conclusions.
- Capturing and retaining a greater understanding of an intelligence publication's meaning, purpose, genesis, and characteristics as identified by a human or service.
Chief Information Officer
IC Technical Specifications
Whitelist Guidance for ISM
Overview
This Whitelist Guidance for ISM (Whitelist.XML) provides guidance on the use of a whitelist to prevent the ingestion of unauthorized documents by testing XML Data Encoding Specification for Information Security Markings (ISM.XML) markings.
Whitelisting is the process of identifying attributes that are recognized and supported; if an attribute on a document does not exist in the whitelist configuration file, then the document will fail business rule validation. Whitelisting is preferred to blacklisting because it can protect a system against ingesting documents with new markings that could possibly result in a data spill.
This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Data Standards Coordination Activity (DSCA) and Common Metadata Standards Tiger Team (CMSTT).
Technical Specification Downloads
Latest Approved Public Release:
- Whitelist Guidance for ISM (V2019-MAR - Standalone Package)
- Whitelist Guidance for ISM (V2019-MAR - Convenience Package)
- Whitelist Guidance for ISM (V2019-MAR - Light Package)
Mission Requirements
The IC CIO funds and oversees a number of critical enabling projects to allow interagency access control, automated exchanges, and appropriate protection of shared intelligence. Information sharing within the national intelligence enterprise will increasingly rely on information assurance metadata including information security markings, enterprise data headers, and determination of an individual's need-to-know. A successful information sharing enterprise depends on the ability of the data creator and/or providers to specify the means by which need-to-know can be established in a manner to facilitate discovery and access via automated means.
This document provides general and prescriptive guidance for the use of whitelisting to validate that a system is authorized to handle ISM.XML markings on a given XML document.
Chief Information Officer
IC Technical Specifications
XML Data Encoding Specification for Data Element Definition
Overview
This XML Data Encoding Specification for Data Element Definition (DED.XML) defines detailed implementation guidance for using XML to encode Data Element Definitions (DED) data. This Data Encoding Specification (DES) defines the XML elements and attributes, associated structures and relationships, mandatory and cardinality requirements, and permissible values for representing DED data concepts using XML. The exchange of DED across the Enterprise is critical to creating a common understanding of data fields and structures.
This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Data Standards Coordination Activity (DSCA) and Common Metadata Standards Tiger Team (CMSTT).
Technical Specification Downloads
Latest Approved Public Release:
- XML Data Encoding Specification for Data Element Definition (V2019-MAR - Standalone Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specification for Data Element Definition (V2019-MAR - Convenience Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specification for Data Element Definition (V2019-MAR - Light Package)
Mission Requirements
Information sharing with the national intelligence enterprise is increasingly dependent on the exchange of information about an exchange format. Systems, users, and developers all need a more consistent machine processable format for exchanging information describing data. This specification is a reaction to that need. Both enterprise needs and requirements for this specification can be found in the following policies and implementation guidance:
- 500 Series:
- Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 500, Director Of National Intelligence Chief Information Officer
- Intelligence Community Standard (ICS) 500-20, IC Enterprise Standards Compliance
Chief Information Officer
IC Technical Specifications
XML Data Encoding Specifications for Production Metrics Assertion
Overview
This XML Data Encoding Specification for Production Metrics Assertion (PMA.XML) defines detailed implementation guidance for using Extensible Markup Language (XML) to encode PMA data. This Data Encoding Specification (DES) defines the XML elements and attributes, associated structures and relationships, mandatory and cardinality requirements, and permissible values for representing PMA data assertion concepts using XML within the use of a Trusted Data Format (TDF) Object or Collection.
This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Data Standards Coordination Activity (DSCA) and Common Metadata Standards Tiger Team (CMSTT).
Technical Specification Downloads
Latest Approved Public Release:
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Production Metrics Assertion (V2019-MARr2019-SEP - Standalone Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Production Metrics Assertion (V2019-MARr2019-SEP - Convenience Package)
- XML Data Encoding Specifications for Production Metrics Assertion (V2019-MARr2019-SEP - Light Package)
Mission Requirements
This DES is designed to fulfill a number of requirements in support of the transformational efforts of the IC. These requirements include:
- Capturing one or more Production Metrics where each of them captures the Actor (who), Subject (what), and optional Location (where) to provide intelligence producers the ability to more accurately track funding for DDII intelligence gathering.
- Capturing one or more Production Metrics where each of them captures the Actor (who), Subject (what), and optional Location (where) to enable intelligence producers to mark data in a way that improves DDII's ability to measure collected information.
Both enterprise needs and requirements for this specification can be found in the following policies and implementation guidance:
500 Series:
- Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 500, Director Of National Intelligence Chief Information Officer
- ICD 501, Discovery and Dissemination or Retrieval of Information within the IC
- Intelligence Community Standard (ICS) 500-20, IC Enterprise Standards Compliance